Elegy for Emily

The short but remarkable career of American jazz guitarist, Emily Remler (1957-1990), ended with her death, amid still-disputed circumstances, in Sydney in 1990 while on tour. Emily played with virtually all the major jazz guitarists of the era and recorded six albums under her own name during the 1980s. Throughout this career, which was pioneering in terms of female jazz instrumentalists, Remler was widely interviewed in the musical press. It is mainly from these interviews, and other biographical material, that poet and jazz aficionado, Geoff Page, has written Elegy for Emily, a compressed and vivid account of her life and work, employing verse that both echoes and complements the rhythms and sonorities of her music.